Are you preoccupied with Krishna or many other Things?!

BRANCHES, SUB BRANCHES, COMPLICATIONSPure devotional service is a wonderful activity because it is at that stage that one is no longer divided ….In this material world we are (Sanskrit), That we become branched out in so many different things…this interest, that interest….more and more things, everything creates more and more complications, like a branch many sub branches come from it. Just like someone who was single and then he becomes married and then children come and in the end he can not imagine how he could survive if he was single, on such little money how was it possible, how could I do it, how could I live like that….now we need so much. This is an example of how one in material life, how one’s activities are branching out, everywhere in all directions. But devotional service, one becomes fixed, fixed upon Krishna and everything serves the purpose of Krishna. Everything means that….only satisfaction of Krishna. That means that we have to give up all attachments.

BODILY CONSCIOUSNESSDesignations, the identifications….. one can have identifications, one can say I am from Mumbai, I am from Mahastra or something like that, from India…… Identification, why are we from Mumbai or from Mahastra or India. We are not, We are not. Our body may be from there but we are not that body, so what have we got to do with that designation?! Nothing, absolutely nothing! And in so many ways all the designations belong to the body, that is the point. So as one is realizing truly, that he is not the body, that means also, the designations disappear.Sometimes we see a devotee walking around with a t-shirt: you are not this body, you are an eternal spirit soul…….. those are nice t-shirts, but yet a t-shirt is not enough, one has to take the consequences of this t-shirt (Sankrit) Every designations that are related to the body are not important, very secondary, it doesn’t have much meaning. If we are not the body then what is the importance of the body…. Ok we have it, Ok we use it, that’s about it. We have so many things, we use them but how important are they? But somehow or other we become absorbed, absorbed in bodily consciousness. Bodily consciousness is described as: I and Mine…not only I but also mine: My Possessions.

MIND INTO OBJECTS, OBJECTS INTO MINDIn the eleventh canto of Srimad Bhagavatam there is a description where the sages have assembled and they are asking questions to Lord Brahma: So the question that they are asking is the following question: “This world is full of so many objects, why is it that the mind goes into the objects and that the objects go into the mind?” That is a big question. Lord Brahma had difficulty answering the question. Lord Brahma said “I am subject to the same thing, it happens to me as well.” So the question was then answered by the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

PREOCCUPIED WITH SO MANY THINGSThis is the nature of the material energy, the nature of the mind is to enter into the things and then the things enter into the mind. I sometimes give an example of this point: If you take some money and you lock it in a box, you are not only locking the money in the box, you are also locking a portion of your mind in the box each time. You may have so many keys and witheach lock, part of your mind is locked also, so many things, you can think of what you have locked, you locked your house, you locked your bike, you locked your car, you locked your money away…..with each thing a bit of the mind is there. In this way our mind becomes preoccupied with so many things, but a devotee is only preoccupied with Krishna and then can take the material energy and use it in the service of Krishna.